Welting and method of making the same



bee. 18, 19 2 v 1,695,970

H. LYON WELTING AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAIE Filed D60. 23, 1926 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Dec. 18, 1928.

H. LYON WELTING AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Filed D90. 23. 1926 w 2 36 z L1 2 Sheets-Sheet. 2

Patented Dec. 18, 1928 umT osT rss PATENT; OFFICE.

HARRY Lyon, or QUINCY,

or nommoox MASSAC USETTS, AsS IeNoRTo' PERLEY n. BARBOUR, MASSACHUSETTS, DOING BUSINESS AS BARBQUR WELTING ooMPAnY.

,WELTING AND METHOD or MAKING THE SAME.

Application filed December This invention relates toawelting for use in the manufacture of Goodyear welt boots and shoes, and to a novel method of making the same. I

Goodyear welt-ing, as commonly manufactured, consists of a Strip of grain leather having its grain side generously beveled at one edge and a groove formed in the flesh side near said beveled edge. These two cuts are both at the inner edge of the welting when incorporated in a shoe. The bevel and groove increase the flexibility of the welting and assist in bending and fitting the inner edge thereof against the in'lasted upper and into the angle between the feather and sewing-rib of the insole, and the groove provides a secure anchorage for the inseam stitches and is made large enough to bury the heavy chain-stitched inseam when the welt is beaten out prior to the outsole stitching operation thus presenting a smooth lower welt face for engagement by the outsole. In the manufacture ,of welting as .just described the blank strip must be of the entire overall width of the welting in its finished form and the considerable amount of stock removed by grooving and beveling becomes waste.

Goodyear welting requires expensive -leather because its texture must be of sulficient strength to hold the shoe together under the strains during wear which affect the inseam and outseam. A highly important feature ofwelting is the retention of a sufficient width of grain surface be-' cause the groove is so located relative to the bevel that the curved needle of the welt sew.- ing machine strikes through the outer edge of the bevel out, i. e. Where the bevel 'joins the grain of the welt tightly against :the

grain of the upper. stock, the widthof the grain surface'is skilnp'ed, as by using a narrower strip than as described above, then the flesh uncovered by the bevel cut will be visible at the crease of the shoe after inseaming and We have what is known as a grinning inseam which indicates poor; shoemaking and produces cripples. g

The present invention provides a method of manufacture whereby the requisite width of grain surface is preserved, or'even increased,'and yet full width welting maybe produced from a strip that-is considerably burying the inseam stitches, due to the novel the grain, thus causing the inseam to draw' If, in. order to save 23, 1926. Serial N0. 156 ,712.

narrower than the finished welting. The resultant welting has the desired bevel to promote flexibility at its inner edge and an ample width of groove, for receiving and an shape ,of cut made in the flesh side. and from which the groove is produced. Furthermore all of the advantages. are se-x cured with a negligible or no removal of stock from the strip, i. e. no waste, and without any undesirable conoensing of the stock within or about the groove or any other'partof the welting which is to receive stitching For a more complete understanding of the invention reference may be had to, the ac.-

cmnpanying drawing, in which:

Figure 1 a-view, in perspective, ofa welt strip, the dotted lines showing the proportion of stock: savedin making any width of welting by practising the. present method; r t

Fig. 2 is a view, in perspective, of the strip shown by full lines in F ig. 1, slit and corner-sliced on its flesh and grain sides re speetively r Figs. 3 and 4 are views, in cross-section, of the welting showing an intermediate and the final stage of itsmanufacture. I Fig.5 is a view, in perspective, showing 3; the finished welt-lug from its grain side;

(3, '7 and 8 are views, in cross-section, of a modified form in which a still narrower strip may be used. andproviding for the. complete bevel by bending alone, the three 0 figures illustrating the blank strip, the fillet slit on its flesh side and the finished welting provided with a groove and bevel; Fig. 9 illustrates Goodyear welting as at present manufa-cturc,'in cross-section, and by the dotted lines connecting it with Fig. 8 illustrates graphically how the overallwidth of the narrow strip of Fig. 6 is increased to equal that of the old Goodyear while yet, maintaining the requisite width of grain surface;

F igs. l0 and 11 are views,'in cross-section, of another modified form of the welting when made from the narrow strip;

Figs. 12 and 13 are views, in cross-section, of welting like that shown in Figs. 7' and 8 .but using a modified form of slit in the fleshside;' i

Fig. 14 representsa cross-section through a portion of an unbottomed shoe showing the welting after inseaming but before beating; and i Fig. 15 represents a cross-section, as in Fig. 14, but with the welt beaten and an out-sole stitched thereto.

Referring first to Figs. 1 to 5 inclusive which illustrate the preferred form of the welt, the welt strip 20 indicated by full lines in Fig. 1 is narrower, by the amount of stock blocked out by the dotted lines 21, than the welt strip required for the manufacture of Goodyear welting by the old method (see Fig. 9). Assuming that half-inch welting is to be produced, i. e. one-half of an inch overall width, then the saving of stock by the method of manufacture to be hereinafter described will run from (l to 12 0 which, when the high cost of stock for fine grades of welting is considered is a material saving and enables a substantial reduction in the cost per yard of manufacture. Each pair of welt shoes requires substantially a yard of welting, and the usual orders for welting from shoe manufacturers are for from several hundred thousand to millions of yards. This indicates roughly the enormous saving in stock that this invention secures While yet producing welting whichis the equal in all aspects of the welting made by the old wasteful method.

In the new method of manufacture the flesh side F of the strip 20 is slit longitudinally as at 22 with a knife having a blade shaped as shown on the end of the welt in Fig. 2, that is, an edge that ends its slit 23 substantially perpendicular to the flesh side and an edge that ends its slit 2& substantially perpendicular to the inner edge surface 26, said blade having preferably, but not necessarily, a formation which joins the two cuts by a curved heel 25. The portion 23 of the slit is spaced from the outer edge 28 a distance equal to that determined by the outer edge of the groove 29 (Fig. 9) in the old type of Goodyear welting. since this portion of the slit forms the outer wall of the groove in the new welting;

As a second step, although it is within the scope of the invention to perform it at the time the flesh side is incised the grain side at the inner corner is sliced off to a slight extent by a cut 30 which extends from a line on the inner edge 26, substantially opposite the part 245 of the slit in the flesh side, to a line on the grain side which is at least as far from the outer edge 28 as the outer end of the bevel 31 (Fig. 9) on the old type of Goodyear welting. In practice the corner-slicing is so abrupt that an even widergrain surface G is retained thus amply insuring against grinning inseams.

-The inner margin about the slit is also tempered by wetting and the slit and cornersliced strip is then fed past, a plow or plows which partially open the slit 22v as illustrated by Fig. 3. A filler such as a starch solution for stiifening or strengthening the fibres may be applied to the open groove at this stage if deemed desirable. It will be observed that the opening ofthe slit 22 has forced the inner edge 26'outw'ard and toward the oblique plane of the cornerslice 30.

The final step of completely forming the stitch-receiving groove 32 and the inner edge bevel 34; (Fig. 5) is accomplished by an outward bending and pressing of the stock between the slit and the inner edge until the sliced corner 30 and the-edge 26 conform to a single oblique plane at which time the bottom portion of the slit is fully exposed, providing the inseam stitches, and the stock which originally lay down in the'groove 32 forms its inner wall 35 (Fig. In this finished welting the groove 32 and bevel 3d are po- Sit'lOZlGtl relatively to each other as in the old Goodyear w ing machine the needle will strike through the inner wall35 of the groove and emerge just outside the bevel, sewing a seam (see Fig. i l) whichinsures exposure of grain surface from the outer edge 28 inward to the shoe crease. r

The modified form of the welting illustrated by Figs. 6 to 8 is mane by practising ample room for citing and at the inseam the process hereinbefore described except that the cos-rner-slicing step is omitted. In making this form of the welting the blank strip 36 may be one-eighth of an inch narrower than the blank strip that heretofore has been grooved and beveled and this width gives a thirty-second of an inch more grain surface-than before in the finished welting.

'llhe'same type of slit 38 is made in the'same I been. completed by Fig. 3 with a full width, stitch-receiving groove 40 and an inner-end bevel 42 produced by bending outwardly the stock between the slit and inner edge of the strip which causes the inner edge to take an inclined position at an obtuse an 'le to the rain side corres 3onding in position tothe bevel 31 of Fig. 9.

The dotted lines connecting 8 and 9 serve to illustrate graphically how the process produces welting of normal overall This is-optional. The process here-' width from a narrower strip, while yetre- T taining the full-sized groove and bevel and 7 preserving tTl2Ll1l.}')lG Width of grain'surfac In this form ofthe welt ng no stool; is removed from the strip. This is also-true of the form illustrated by Figs. 12. and wherein a modified flesh sideslit a l s shown.

This slit 41% is producedbya knifeablade quadrant ofa circle. which shaped like the will suffice to produce a groove large enough to recei've'the stitchin since the im' ortant consideration is to produce an opemngha-vmg a w de enough base'to act as" a secureianchorage for thestitches; The result, after in stripping the welting stock with a curved knife so presented to the stock as to produce a slightly concave outer edge 52 and a slightly convex inner edge 54,-. The convex ity of the knife blade is sufiiciently slight to retain a substantially rectangular cross-section on the strip. Completion of the procass on this strip develops the groove 56 and bevel 58 while at the same time increasing the overall width to produce full width weltingfrom the narrower strip. The curved knife makes a beveling cut slightly into the grain at the point 60 '(Fig. 10) but, as shown by the dotted line aa' on Figs. 8 and 9, a bit of this grain surface may be sacrificed and still retain the full width of the grain supplied by the old Goodyear welting. The slight concavity at the outer edge will be eradicated at the edge-trimming operation. The reason for providing the slightly convex inner edge Men the strip is to insure a plane-surfaced bevel on welting made from the softer and somewhat punky stock which, because of its lack of stiffness or hardness, tends to break, when bent outward, somewhat below the inner grain corner rather than at said corner; The slight slicing of the inner grain corner by the curved knife straightens out the bevel 58 under such conditions. It is for this reason that this form or that of Figs. 1 to is preferred since the corner-slicinginsures a plane-surfaced bevel throughout the entire length of each hank even though the characteristics of the stock varies along different portions of said length.

It will be observed that in each instance the strip from which the welting is made is of substantially less width than is required to make the old Goodyear welting of the same overall width as the welting finally produced. This increase in the overall width of the original strip is accomplished by a simple outward pressing and bending which displaces the material loosened by the incision in the flesh side. This bending pressure and displacement is exercised entirely on material at the flesh sides of the strip and in a direction to force the inner edge sur-' face toward the grain side. No pressure is exertedfrom the grain side toward the flesh ened or condensed by" compression 'of the stock; Because of the fact that only simple cutting and bending operations are performed thenovelwelting can-be easily and cheaply manufactured. 1

'Fig. 14 illustrateswelting of the present invention inseamed toqthe upper materials and insole of a weltshoe after its bevel 34 sideand no part of the groovethat isformed, or, any other portion of the welting, is hardhas been fitted snugly into the angle between the feather and sewing-rib of the insole. After the welt beating operation the inseam trimming operation is performed as indicated by the dash line on Fig 14:, an outsole is applied and the welting is outseamed thereto. Fig, 15 illustrates this stage ofthe shoemaking process.

The scope of the invention claimed herein is purposely limited .to welting, and the method of its manufacture, of the kind havdinal slit for producing a groove, supple mented by a removal of some stock from the grain side of the strip at its inner corner to assist in providing a beveled inner edge ing the illustrative characteristic longitupending application Serial No. 73l,932, filed August 14, 1924:.

The nature and scope of the invention hav- .ing been indicated, and the preferred embodiments ofthe welt and the method of makb b whatls clalmed as new, 1s:

1. WVelting for boots and shoes comprising a strip of grain leather having a grain corner removed at its inner edge, a longitudinal incision near said edge extending from the flesh side inwardlyand then'turning toward said edge, and having the marginal portion between said incision and inner edge displaced toward the grain sideWith the entire inner edge positioned oblique to the grain side and said incision opened to present a stitch-receiving groove.

2. lVelting for boots and shoes comprising a substantially rectangular strip of grain leather having a longitudinal incision near its inner edge extendingfrom the flesh side inwardly and then turning toward said inner edge, said inner edge being slightly beveled on its grain corner, and. having the flesh stock partly severed by said incision in it havin been specifically described,

bent outwardly to open the incision and set the edge surface thereof in the plane of said grain corner bevel.

8. Themethod of making grooved and beveled welting for boots and shoes which I inner edge by a slit which extends inwardly from said flesh side and then turns toward said inner edge, removing a slight portion of the grain by a beveling cut atrthe inner corner of the grain side, and'then opening said incision to expose the base and form a stitch-receiving groove by outward displacement of the marginal stock until the inner edge surface is pressed substantially into the oblique plane of said beveling out. 4. The method of making welting for boots and shoes which comprises slitting inwardly from the flesh'side of a substan tially rectangular strip of grain leather longitudinally near its inner edge, temper ing said slit margin, partially opening the slit, introducing a fibre stiffening solution to said partially opened slit, and then pressing the tempered and stifi'ened stock outwardly to open the slit and form a stitch-receiving groove and displace said inner edge from its vertical relation to the grain side and set it oblique thereto.

HARRY LYON i 

